Wiki Page Style Guide
When creating wiki pages, it is important to be consistent in literary tone, style and conciseness. This style guide is an attempt at a guideline which describes how wiki pages should be formatted. Our Style Guide The Cosrin Community Wiki adopts Wikipedia's Manual of Style. This manual of style should be treated as our own here at Cosrin Community Wiki. Style Tips General Wikipedia's Manual of Style is very long and cumbersome; Here are some general tips: * Style should be consistent within a wiki page. It important to have consistent style across all wiki pages, but consistency within a single page is more important. * Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording. Proper spelling and grammar is absolutely necessary. * In writing, avoid any bias towards any one group or faction within the game. * Avoid ambiguity of any kind. Be as specific as possible. * Assume readers have no previous knowledge of a topic in a wiki article. This will help you write clear and full explanations of the subject matter. Editing * If using abbreviations, ensure that the fully qualified phrase for that abbreviation is used at least once early in the wiki page. * Whenever possible, if a phrase is used in a wiki page which may have its own related wiki page, link that phrase using link. * Avoid statements that will age quickly. Avoid recently, soon, and now. Avoid relative terms like currently (usually redundant), in modern times, is now considered, and is soon to be superseded. ** Instead, use more precise and absolute expressions (since the start of 2005; during the 1990s; is expected to be superseded by 2008); or ** An "as of" phrase (as of August 2007), which signals the time-dependence of the statement, and alerts later editors to update the statement; or simply use at instead: The population was over 21,000,000 (at December 2008). * Avoid vague generalizations. Phrases such as some people, others, and a large number. Be specific; use quantitative ways of describing information over qualitative ways. ** Acceptable -- quantitative: "Two of the ten clans in Cosrin are active -- X and Y." ** Unacceptable -- qualitative: "Few clans in Cosrin are active." * Avoid phrases that lead to readers potentially asking additional questions to find more information. ** Unacceptable -- "The Misty Vales contain several clans of Hill Giants." (How many clans?) ** Unacceptable -- "The Misty Vales contain 4 clans of Hill Giants." (Which clans?) ** Acceptable -- "The Misty Vales contain 4 clans of Hill Giants: the X, Y, Z, and W." Article/Page Titles * In article titles, avoid using special characters. * Use proper capitalization. English Language Style * Unless indicated and used by an artifact in game (an item name, room description, help file text, etc.), American English spelling and grammar must be used. * When a game artifact uses British spelling and/or grammar, the British spelling may be used only when listing that artifact explicitly. ** Acceptable: "Full steel plate armour is a piece of armor available as a drop in the troll caves." ** Unacceptable: "Full steel plate armour is a piece of armour available as a drop in the troll caves."